


Sunbeams

by StrongerThanAnySword



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, pure fluff, summertime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 02:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15427239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerThanAnySword/pseuds/StrongerThanAnySword
Summary: It's some years after the war; a peaceful afternoon is spent relaxing by the lake.





	Sunbeams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaneWeller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneWeller/gifts).



Hermione Granger was a breathtaking sight.

  
Not, of course, that Draco would admit that outright, out loud, or to her face—at least, not at first—but he thought it often, in the years after the war. After six years of seeing her around, first as children and then as teenagers, and every time bar a handful of times in the same black robes, seeing her in other clothing was . . . refreshing. Beautiful, really.

Seeing her now, in a pair of denim shorts which hugged her ass so nicely and a tank top and very little else, it was almost overwhelming.

Every time he saw her in more mundane clothing, it helped to erase the last days of the Wizarding War for him—helped him to disremember seeing her, at the battle, helped him to forget her screams as Bellatrix had tortured her in his own home, never once letting a plea for mercy slip past her lips. She hadn’t begged, and that had made it worse—and better.

“Draco,” Hermione murmured, turning to him, her rich brown eyes worried even as her lips quirked up into a smile. “What are you doing?”

“Enjoying the view,” he said, his tone just as soft, his fingertips tracing lightly over the smooth swell of her thigh.

He absolutely could not believe how beautiful she had become.

She had always been beautiful, of course, but not in a way he’d noticed. Not until he’d seen her at the Yule Ball, her hair done up, wearing the gorgeous flowing periwinkle gown. Not until she’d punched him to his knees in the third year. Not until he’d noticed the way her chin lifted when she was feeling defiant, how her eyes closed when she laughed, really laughed.

Or the way her cheeks dimpled, just slightly, when she smiled.

“You’re supposed to be looking at the lake,” she admonished, leaning closer to him, invading his space until their noses were almost touching—but then, you had to be unwelcome to invade, and she most certainly was not.

“It’s in the background,” he said offhandedly, his eyes half-closing at the feel of her breath dancing over his lips. “You’re blocking the glare of the sun for me.”

“Hmmmm.” She huffed out a small laugh, nosing at his cheek, her eyes sparkling at him. “I think you’re a bit distracted, darling. You’re supposed to be watching the sunset with me.” A light splashing, and he knew she was kicking her feet where they dangled over the edge of the dock.

“You said come to enjoy the view,” he murmured, unable to stop himself from glancing down to her plush lips and back up into her eyes. “I assumed you meant you. That’s a clarity issue, Granger, and you should know better.”

“You are never going to let that go, are you. It’s not my fault that you don’t know how to properly handle a Puffsk-.”

He, eyes closing, pressed forward and into the kiss that had been awaiting him.

She tasted like ginger tea with honey in it, like hotdogs cooked over a fire with ketchup, no mustard. She tasted like warm almost-evening air fresh off a lake.

“You never let me talk,” she muttered, but she was winding one fist into his t-shirt and tugging him in for another kiss, so he didn’t think it was that big of an issue.

“You talk all the time,” he offered when they parted again. She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder, shifting closer so she could rest comfortably.

He had absolutely no issue with that.

As the sun sank low, low, finally becoming obscured by the treetops, Draco watched the lake come alive with lights; all the way along the shores, fires just like the one several hundred feet behind them were springing up as if summoned. The temperature dropped sharply, and Draco sat forward, taking the weight off his hands where he had been propped up, the better to wrap one around Hermione’s shoulders and draw her closer still.

The moon rising over the lake was matched by one below, reflected and shining just as brightly. The illusion only broke when a light breeze ruffled the top of the lake, turning it from smooth glass into a choppy pseudo-surf, but when the wind died down all was quiet once more.

Only at the Manor had he seen this many stars, but there seemed to be even more out here, and they, too, were reflected in the lake.

Silence reigned, wrapping them up in a blanket, drawing them closer together. When Draco spoke again, it was in a whisper.

“I have to hand it to you, Hermione—you were right. It’s truly beautiful.”

“Can you say that again,” she murmured, “so that I can get a copy of it to play over and over again?”

“Absolutely not.” He was smiling; the warmth of the sun, when it set, seemed to have apparated into his own chest. He wondered briefly if he was glowing, lit from the inside out.

Hermione certainly seemed to be.

He tilted his head down, burying his nose in the top of her head, breathing in slowly. Pine trees, and smoke, and the outside air, and underneath it all, Hermione.

“You’re being clingy tonight,” she muttered, looking up. “What’s going on?”

He cracked a smile.

“Nothing,” he said in reply, thinking of the small dark box packed carefully away in his bag back in the tent, of the incredible shine of the band within. Without access to his family’s fortune—all gone now, in the years since the war, as part of reparations—he’d worked for it, struggled to save the money, and at first he had thought he was striving for himself, to build a fortune up again, to find, no, to make his place in the wizarding world once again.

Hermione had somewhat ruined those plans; he didn’t mind at all, because it meant that she was here, sitting next to him, for the kissing and the touching and the loving and, later, other things.

“I am just thinking how lucky I am,” he murmured, and it was true. He didn’t, he had never, deserved her, deserved this. Her answering smile was fond, and warm, and his, and she gently butted her forehead against his, humming when he shifted to kiss her hairline.

“I was just thinking the same,” she said softly, returning her gaze to the lake, to the double moon. “And then I realized it wasn’t luck, because I put a hell of a lot of work into dragging you up here.”

He groaned and jostled her as she laughed.

“I am lucky to have you, Draco,” she said then, serious, cupping his cheek with her hand and tugging his gaze back down to hers. “Seriously, I mean it.”

His grin was widening rapidly.

“Don’t smile like that, it’s weird.”

“I can’t help it when you say sappy things, Hermione.”

She sighed, and rolled her eyes at him.

“The moon is obviously lost on you,” she said, standing up. Water dripped and fell from her legs onto the wood of the deck, staining it dark brown.

“I don’t know about that,” he said coyly, watching her bend over to retrieve her sandals.

He really needed to get her about a dozen more pairs of those shorts.

“Eyes up here, pretty boy.”

He was still grinning when he looked up at her, and all she could do was shake her head, sighing, but she was smiling too.

“C’mon. I need to teach you how to make s’mores.”

“All right,” he said agreeably, pulling his legs out of the water and standing himself. He stretched, enjoying the cool of the night, but supposed that Hermione was probably a little chilly anyway.

“We should sit by the fire while you teach me,” he said, holding out his hand, patiently waiting for her to lace her fingers through his.

She laughed at him, taking hold of his hand, tugging him down the dock and toward their cheerful fire.

“Draco, I think we might be able to accomplish that.”

The Grangers—her two parents—sat in folding chairs next to it. They waved when they saw Hermione and Draco nearing them, and they seemed happy, carefree; Draco’s heart ached and swelled at once as he looked at them. He was happy, truly happy; after a lot of explaining (and being watched quite carefully), Hermione’s father had finally given in and accepted his presence in his daughter’s life. Her mother, on the other hand, had taken a much longer time to come around—not that Draco blamed her, of course—but she too seemed to have forgiven him for all the things Draco had done wrong. Hermione herself, he knew, had a lot to do with that.

As he sat there, in the firelight, Hermione’s leg pressed up against his as she taught him how to burn his marshmallows to the optimal coloring—Draco preferred a perfect golden complexion, while she liked hers burnt—Draco thought again of the tiny band of sunlight waiting for her, waiting for them, waiting for the dawn.

When Hermione wasn’t looking, he studied her face, smiling to himself as he imagined how it would look while he knelt on one knee below her.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Sunshine Fic Exchange 2018! I hope you like it, JaneWeller!


End file.
